Chippy

Fish, preferably haddock, covered in beer and flour batter and deep fried in beef dripping with a large portion of thick cut chips fried likewise, lashings of salt and maybe just a small drizzle of vinegar. Now what could be tastier or healthier than that? Fewer calories than a burger, less fat than a pizza, the chips are even a viable source of vitamin C!

This chippy on Lairgate is a bit posh in having a restaurant attached and the prices seem to be typically Beverley inflated but as there 11,000 chippies in the UK finding an alternative shouldn't be too difficult.

Now the English language often gives mirth with its ability to have multiple meanings for words. So if you wish to substitute 'carpenter' or even 'female prostitute' for 'chippy' in the above paragraph feel free.

Indulgence

I suppose the price of indulgence rises just like any other commodity but this cake shop (Patisserie! hah!) on Beverley's Butcher Row does seem to be just a tad on the expensive side. Still you only live once ...

Here is Brindley Street and you can keep it.

There is a little stretch of East Hull that is dedicated to the memory of scientists and engineers of by-gone eras. Near East Park we find Newcomen, Savery, Telford, Kelvin, Faraday, Watt, Lodge Streets and so on and last but not least here is Brindley Street.

Brindley? who he? I hear you ask, (well I asked). James Brindley was an 18^th century  digger  of canals (really more a planner, others did the digging). OK the Bridgewater Canal since you ask, the start of all this hectic movement of goods and commerce, Industrial Revolution, the modern age and all that jazz. All his fault ... put the blame on James.
Fourteen or so years ago we almost bought a house on this street, a five bed-roomed monster of a terraced house. Dirt cheap (then) but no garden and quite a depressing outlook. Ended up buying a house on Portobello Street further along Holderness Road (a big mistake!). I noticed the Brindley Street house  is back on the market (you can just about make out the For Sale sign ). Am I tempted? Hah!

The Monks Walk

I sometimes wonder what happen to all those monks after the dissolution of the monasteries, did they find alternative employment elsewhere? I mean what skills did an ex-monk have to bring to the medieval employment market? Was there much call for praying for souls, Gregorian chanting and all that silent contemplation malarky? As it turns out they were simply pensioned off and with the inflation of the day that was probably not a lot to live on. (The monastery servants, however, were simply given the sack and cast out!)  So no doubt the old Brothers union would like as not drown their sorrows in the nearby hostelry, swapping their good habits for bad, dissolute monks, eh, who wants 'em!.

Enough, enough. This is the Monks Walk on Highgate, Beverley just a few steps from the Minster. It used to be the George and Dragon or just plain George. It was definitely a pub back in the mid 17^th century and probably before that. Anyhow a few years back when it was being refitted it was found to date back to at least 1420. What you see here is a Georgian facade on some medieval buildings. The blank white sign on the right used to say "Whitbread" but clearly the link with this brewer has been dissolved since Whitbread ceased to brew beer about fourteen years ago (the first pint of beer I ever bought was a Whitbread, terrible frothy stuff, but I digress). The building is listed Grade2, there's more by a much better informed author on this page.

Walking home

Hull Road, Cottingham

I could always catch a bus and pay whatever the fare is these days from Cottingham to Golf Links Road but then it's not like it's that far and it's hardly unpleasant ... so one foot in front of the other it is then. Perhaps I could get a bike!

Step away from the window

Here as promised is the West window of Beverley Minster. I'm told it depicts figures and events in early Christianity in Northumbria. Though this is fine late Gothic perpendicular style the glazing dates from restoration work carried out in the mid 19th century by a company called Hardman's of Birmingham formed at the behest of Gothic revival fruitcake A. W. N. Pugin. English Heritage (bless them) describes this as a " 9-light sub-arcuated west window", I suppose brevity is next to godliness...

John, Luke, Mark and Matthew

Somehow this massive 18^th century carved oak door survived the ravages of the Gilbert Scott's 'restoration' of Beverley Minster. The door depicts from right to left the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with their respective symbols. A family of craftsmen by the name of Thornton is responsible for this door and the baptismal font cover which I'll show some time soon. The same Thorntons also saved the North transept from collapsing.

In reality the door is a very dark brown  but my camera failed me (or I failed it) and underexposed it; so to make an anywhere decent image I've had to play around ending up with this black and white image, it's a bit clearer if you click on it for the bigger version. Below shows the impressive door surround (they did like their statues back then) and the base of the West window which I'll show tomorrow.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.